The Exam
by Lucillia
Summary: After defeating Madara and saving the world, Naruto fulfills all of his life's goals. Well, all but one actually, and he's working on that one...
1. Phase One Start!

Tsunade sat at THE desk scowling. She had sworn that she would never ever see this side of this particular piece of furniture again, and less than six months later, here she was. Of course it was only for a little over a month, but still...

The reason she'd been chosen for this particular task had been because she was the only person her successor could trust to hand the desk back as soon as this farce was over.

What farce was Tsunade referring to if you may ask?

Why the fact that Uzumaki Naruto, Rokudaime (Danzo didn't count) Hokage of Konoha was participating in the Chunin Exams, in hopes of finally earning that particular rank, after having gotten tired of the ribbing from the other Kages who wouldn't stop pointing out the fact that the young Kage who had helped defeat Madara and the mysterious Tobi and derail the Moon's Eye Plan was still technically a Genin.

As Tsunade sat at the Hokage's desk grumbling, Naruto was making his way through the halls of the twice rebuilt - three times if one considers all of the damage that had been done during the infamous Day of the Fire Jutsu during the Nidaime's reign which had led to Elemental training being covered after Academy graduation - Ninja Academy in order to reach the room in which the first phase of the Chunin Exams was taking place with two thirteen year-old Genin trailing behind him. As he moved through the halls, he could hear the frequent whispers of "Isn't that the Hokage, what's he doing here?" that trailed in his wake. He did his best not to wince at this.

What he was doing here was earning his Chunin rank the traditional way so he didn't end up with the moniker of "Eternal Genin" after Maruboski Kosuke died since a certain someone had forgotten to give him a field promotion, and promoting oneself was just not done, even if you were Hokage.

Naruto was struck with a sense of deja vu as he entered the room in which the first phase of the Exams was to take place. While the people were different, and the Academy had undergone a number of changes when it had been rebuilt, the room number was the same as it had been when he'd taken the Exams when he was twelve. Rather than swallowing his fear of the larger and stronger people in the room and putting on a show of not being completely intimidated like he had done when he was twelve, he looked around and found that almost everyone in the room was doing that to him.

Oh, yeah, right. He was a Kage Class ninja and they were all about where he was when he was a kid, and they all knew it.

"Are you here to proctor the Exams?" one of the smaller ninja who looked to be a rookie from Suna asked nervously.

"Well, uh, you see, um, eheh." Naruto stammered, rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

It was at that point that Morino Ibiki appeared at the head of a group of Chunin.

"Settle down you brats!" Ibiki snapped. "You too Hokage-sama!"

He most definitely didn't like the look of the smile on the T&I chief's face, nor the gleam of wicked humor in the man's eye.

"You will now get in a line and head toward the front of the room in an orderly fashion where you will be given a number by one of the proctors. That number will correspond with your seat for this portion of the exam." Ibiki said, smirking evilly.

The sense of deja vu grew stronger as he took his number and sat down at his assigned seat where his test and a pencil were waiting for him. As he listened to Ibiki give the rules, he had a feeling that someone or something out there was messing with him. When he turned his paper over he knew.

These were the same damn questions as last time. It was the same freaking test!

He was so going to kill Tsunade.


	2. The End of Phase One

Ibiki gave the tenth question as expected, and he reacted pretty much as expected. What Ibiki said next made him want to die of mortification however.

"Can someone please go check Hokage-sama's paper." Ibiki said instead of giving the "You Pass" speech he'd given the last time. "It has been decided that he will not be allowed to pass with a blank test this time."

He turned bright red and squirmed in his seat as the attention of the entire room turned to him once more. Several of the people in the room including a number of the proctors gave him shocked and incredulous stares. After what seemed like an eternity, one of the proctors got up and came over to check his paper.

"It isn't blank." the proctor said. "He got number three wrong though."

Several of the proctors snickered behind their hands at this. The Genin in the room, a couple of whom were actually older than him despite the fact that he was nearly twenty weren't nearly as restrained. The two genin who comprised the rest of his "team" sat in their seats laughing their little asses off at his expense. Seeing a Hyuuga laugh like that was exceedingly creepy. He pretty much expected it from Kiba's cousin though.

"Now that that business has been taken care of, I am pleased to inform those of you left in the room that you pass this part of the Exam." Ibiki said.

There was a collective "Huh" at this from everyone but Naruto and three of the guys in the back who had probably gone through this part of this particular exam before based on their ages. At least it stopped the laughing.

Ibiki then launched into the same speech he gave seven years before about how you couldn't refuse a mission no matter how risky it was, and how important information was, freaking out the poor little Genins who hadn't seen the spectacle before by removing his bandana and showing off his rather impressive scars.

If Anko came bursting through that window right now, he was going to be very pissed.

Anko came bursting through the window.

He was pissed.

"You're paying for that!" he yelled at the woman as he stood up, bringing his full height - which still wasn't all that impressive - to bear. "There isn't enough money in the Academy budget to be replacing windows every time one of you morons forgets to use the door!"

"Whatever." Anko muttered.

"I heard that!" he yelled.

"It seems that the Naruto Effect influenced this group as well. Sorry for giving you crap about that the last time Ibiki." Anko said. "Well, we'll be correcting this soon when I more than halve your number."

"Please tell me that we're not going into the Forest of Death." he groaned.

"I would..." Anko said. "But, I'd be lying. Meet me at Training Ground 44 in an hour."

He was most definitely going to kill Tsunade.

After a great deal of grumbling, he shuffled out of the room with the rest of the Genin and raced home to pack some supplies after advising the Hyuuga boy and the Inuzuka girl who rounded out his team out of necessity due to the rules to take the opportunity to do so as well. There was no way in hell that this trip was going to go like the last one.

After he'd gotten most of the essentials including several dozen cups of ramen and his favorite tea kettle packed, he raced into the bathroom and grabbed several rolls of toilet paper. This trip into the forest most definitely wouldn't be going like the last one had, and not just because Orochimaru was dead.


	3. Into the Forest

Naruto sighed as Mitarashi Anko once again gave the rules and instructions for passing the Second Phase of the Chunin Exams. Once this was over, she was so going to be on the worst D ranks he could find, including cleaning and repairing the boy's toilets at the Academy. Heck, as soon as this was over, she and Ibiki would be scrubbing the floors in all of the Academy toilets with toothbrushes, and then he was going to make Ibiki be the one to give the Academy students The Talk, after he made Ibiki teach several of the more embarrassing Kunoichi lessons.

On second thought, having Ibiki and/or Anko give the Talk to poor impressionable young Academy students was probably a very bad idea. It would probably traumatize them for life, especially if the two Torture and Interrogation specialists decided to have some fun with the lecture. He wanted there to be a next generation of Konoha ninja, thank you very much.

The two little Genin that would be accompanying him in the forest were looking a little too smug for his tastes. It looked like he would have to ensure that there were preliminaries in order to make sure that his appointment to their team while their usual teammate was out with the Chicken Pox wouldn't fast track them before they were ready. If they passed the preliminaries, more power to them. Konoha needed more qualified Chunin.

Soon, they were in the forest, and he stood there torn between a decision as to whether or not he wanted to break Gaara's record in reaching the tower. On the one hand, it would be beating Gaara at something for once, considering the fact that his friend had made Chunin first, had made Jounin, and had become Kage well before he did. On the other however, if he wasn't in the forest, there would be no guarantees that there would be preliminaries to truly test the little Genin that were with him, and they needed to be tested since being promoted before you were ready was a bad thing, as he'd been told any number of times by any number of people.

After sending out a bunch of Shadow Clones to make sure that things didn't go too far since he didn't want people dying in the forest this time as he wouldn't put it past Tsunade to put him on corpse clean-up duty in order to get revenge on him for handing her The Hat for a month and forcing her to deal with the arrangements for the Chunin Exams since he couldn't be involved because he was participating, he led his team deeper into the woods. All too soon, they came upon a team from Iwa.

The Genin who couldn't have been older than fifteen looked like they were about to wet themselves when he appeared.

"I'll show you mine if you show me yours" he said as he reached towards his belt pouch where he kept the team's scroll.

The Iwa Genin all looked horrified for a moment before they nervously unfastened and dropped their trousers as one.

He buried his face in his hands.

"Your scroll." he groaned. "I meant your scroll. Pull your pants back up."

His teammates laughed like a pair of hyenas on nitrous oxide as he relieved the poor team of the scroll which turned out to be the one he needed. As soon as he had their scroll, the hapless team from Iwa disappeared so fast that he could have sworn they'd picked up the Hiraishin.

Screw arranging for the preliminaries, he was getting the hell out of here before his reputation took another hit.


	4. The Preliminaries

Naruto had indeed ended up breaking Gaara's record in reaching the tower, and had been forced to cool his heels there for nearly five days with almost nothing to do but root through the collection of dusty scrolls that had been left behind by previous occupants since the only t.v. in the building was being used as a security monitor. During those five days, he received a letter from Gaara in which his friend had pointed out that he'd been twelve when he'd made the record he'd broken, and that Naruto was almost twenty, and a visit from Tsunade about some bizarre accusations that were coming from Iwa. He had sent a reply to Gaara telling him to stuff it, and had stormed off while Tsunade laughed until she cried when she heard about how those accusations had gotten started.

Eventually, after what seemed to be an interminable wait in which he'd learned more about seals than he had in his entire three years with Jiraiya, the five days were up, and there were just enough teams left for there to be preliminaries before the final portion of the exam. He was relieved since it would knock his little "teammates" off their high horse. Probably.

Actually, what had happened was a large number of teams had passed, making a Preliminary round a definite right up until the proctor, one Umino Iruka gave the little brats the opportunity to quit without bringing their teams down with them. Over half of the little bastards left then and there. Those who had remained had been the ones who had figured out that the chances of not drawing him as an opponent were in their favor, and had decided that they wouldn't chicken out.

The preliminaries weren't half as interesting as he remembered them being when he'd participated in these Exams the first time. It was probably due to the fact that he'd been going up against S Class and Kage Class nin since shortly afterward. Participating in said battles wasn't nearly as fun as watching them, and after seeing said battles, anything less seemed to be somewhat paltry in comparison.

Sparring with Ero-Senin when he was trying to draw out the Kyuubi had not been fun by any stretch of the imagination. He could only imagine what the poor brat who was forced to face him would feel when it was his turn. He'd go easy on the poor kid, but it was already clear that the brat was outclassed.

Eventually, after several battles in which a number of children gave it their all (the Genin who were older than him having already been eliminated in the forest despite the fact that at least one team had already taken this exact exam) it was his turn to go against some brat from Kiri. The poor boy's sensei ended up pushing him into the arena where he stood there opening and closing his mouth several times, too afraid to speak, before wetting himself.

Iruka-sensei finally took pity on the poor boy and called the match.

Based on the laughter that was coming up from the observation deck, Hyuuga Hiashi's discussion on proper behavior for a Hyuuga hadn't taken. He would be recommending that Hiashi give his wayward relative another lecture as soon as he was out of here.

Eventually, the contestants who would be participating in the third phase of the exams were lined up and the numbers were drawn. Fate apparently hated him, because he was up against Neji's little cousin.

At least the little brat wasn't laughing now.


	5. The Final Phase

Naruto growled as he stood in the line of contestants in the rebuilt arena. He was flashing back to a certain day, and wasn't too happy. Not just because of the flashbacks that were being caused by the fact that the only two Kage witnessing the events was the Hokage and the Kazekage and he was up against a brat that looked like Neji, but also because the village ninja had not stopped laughing at him for the last month.

It was bad enough getting it from his friends who had had a good laugh over the fact that the tests had been the exact same ones that they'd been given the first time around before they all got lost in memories of what happened back then, and realized why he was so ill tempered about this farce, especially since it had brought up memories of Sasuke who had been made a Tokubetsu Jounin by Orochimaru during his stay in Otogakure who was currently serving a life sentence in the Maximum Security wind of Konoha's rebuilt prison. But, to make matters worse, random shinobi were walking up to him, patting him on the back, wishing him luck, telling him that he could do it this time, and offering to "train" him. Someone had even sent him a copy of that tracksuit he used to wear when he was a kid.

Finally, the waiting was over, and it was time for him to finish this mess and hopefully get his vest unless Tsunade decided to mess with him. He wouldn't put it past the old lady.

He'd do his best to show that he had what it took to be a leader, and that he possessed a modicum of strategic thinking since that was what had held him back the last time, but if he had to he'd throw all of that out of the window. He would never live it down if the little brat beat him, and considering the fact that the kid was the next Hyuuga prodigy after Neji who'd won their rematch, there was a chance that the little bastard would get a lucky shot in. That wouldn't be happening however, if he had anything to say about it.

All too soon, it was time to face off against the little brat whose name was Hikaru. The battle was naturally short, as he had managed to eventually knock the kid out from a distance after not letting him touch him once during a chase around the arena.

When the kid came to and learned that he'd lost, the little brat ended up pulling the worst weapon he could out of his arsenal. The crowd already wasn't cheering since the fight had been so one-sided that it had practically been like taking candy from a baby, but when the little Hyuuga brat started crying, everyone started booing. He wondered how hard that kid had had to train in order to be able to cry like that considering how the Hyuuga were trained to be practically emotionless since birth.

He was so pissed at the crowd's reaction, that he didn't show any mercy whatsoever to the other brats he ended up facing when he won the entire goddamn tournament. He was long since sick of this and just wanted it to be over. He hadn't been so humiliated in a good long time if ever.

Two days later, he was finally called into the Hokage's office.

"Here's your vest and here's your hat. I'd tell you to get out of here, but this is your office." Tsunade said as she threw said items at him and vacated his desk.

He growled as he put on said items, nowhere near as happy about being a Chunin as he thought he'd be, and sat down to do the paperwork that his predecessor had left him. Five minutes later, his brush snapped in half when he'd heard the lock on his window break for what had to have been the millionth time.

"I heard you finally made Chunin. Congratulations." his visitor said.

"Goddamnit Kakashi! USE THE DOOR!"


	6. Epilogue: Revenge, Sweet Revenge

Anko grumbled as she dragged the new toilet into the boy's room. A little bastard who wouldn't be living to see Genin if she had anything to say about it had clogged its predecessor and chucked an explosive note into it in an attempt to unclog it, and she'd been ordered to clean up the resulting mess with a toothbrush. When she'd refused, she'd been blackmailed into it with the threat of an edict from the Hokage forbidding anyone from selling her dango.

It was almost enough to make her want to turn missing-nin. Almost.

When Tsunade had sent her that letter asking her to help pull a prank on Naruto who had somehow made Kage before he'd made Chunin, she should have torn it into a million pieces and told her "HELL NO!".

In the intervening years since the kid had last pulled a major prank, she had forgotten exactly how sadistic that little brat could be. That was one lesson that she wouldn't be forgetting again in a hurry.

&!&!&!&

"...And if the egg isn't fertilized..." Ibiki said as he pointed to a point on the chart, continuing the biology lecture that he had been assigned to give to this year's Kunoichi class, thanking his lucky stars that he looked so intimidating. If he hadn't been so intimidating, chances were that he would have been interrupted and constantly inundated with a number of embarrassing questions.

As the lecture continued, he found himself coming up with the perfect torture idea. Of course he would have to contact Kurenai to work out the kinks in the Genjutsu that would be involved, but seeing it in action would probably be priceless...

This was one of the reasons that he both loved and hated his Hokage. The young man was devious and sadistic.

&!&!&!&

Umino Iruka sighed and did his best to ignore the crowd of Chunin who would be sitting at the back of his beginning Academy class for the rest of the month for the part they had taken in proctoring the most recent Chunin Exams as he lectured the group of eight year-olds on what Chakra was and how to start using it. Eventually, he could no longer ignore one of his colleagues - and he used the term loosely - whom he'd hoped to never see darken the door of his classroom ever again.

"Konohamaru, you will sit still and keep quiet while I'm giving my lecture! You too Kiba!" he yelled at the pair of troublemakers who, when put together, almost added up to Naruto.

&!&!&!&

In a bar in an out of the way corner of the village, a bartender swallowed as he took his life into his hands.

"I'm sorry Tsunade-sama, but I've been ordered to cut you off at two, and all of the other bars have been ordered not to serve you after you've been cut off." he said when the Sannin had called for another round.

&!&!&!&!&

At the Hokage Tower, one Hatake Kakashi grumbled as he fixed the lock on the Hokage's office window.


End file.
